Playlist

Recorded

May 24, 2015

Symphony in D Major (#2) - Jean Sibelius - BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Maksymiuk

The problematic process of developing a synoptic stance. How to be on all sides of the mountain at once. Sinew and bone. Gaping holes. Synthesis by assertion.

La Patti Negra - Orquestra Typicas - [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

One suspects more slippery rhythm back there than remains on the artifact.

Bambino - Grupo Bahianainho - [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

To be heard on foot, moving.

May 26, 2015
A fából faragott királyfi - Béla Bartók - London Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati

A caldron of bubbling forces transformed into a cartoon. What would be comic turns grotesque. The dire extreme has blotted out all else. Cruelty is the spectacle. The happily ever after seems ready to start the whole thing over a few octaves higher. I used to like this piece a lot. now I'm not so sure it's healthy.

Concerto in C Major (#3) - Serge Prokofiev - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Dickran Atomian

Innocuous in the sense of being stylistically sophisticated riffs that never stray past unquestioned assumptions about how music goes. From the linear we ne'er veer. The best parts are when it gets busy fussing with its own innards, going nowhere, twiddling its thumbs, crossing its legs, waiting for us to applaud.

All I Want Is That Pure Religion- Blind Lemon Jefferson - [from Goodbye, Babylon]

One-to-one music, rather than one-to-many. The size of a private meeting rather than of a public gathering.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 25, 2015
Duet 150525 - Keith Eisenbrey

Back to my duet project for awhile. This session is hollow-body electric guitar and drumset. I was having fun with lots of microphones, 6 tracks per part.

Banned Rehearsal 886 150525 - Jenny Chung, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


Aaron and Jenny have returned for the Summer from far-off climes.

Playlist

Recorded

May 17, 2015
The Ride of the Valkyries - Wagner - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

Establishing the apex of the action in the same sense that the Rheingold prelude evokes the nadir.

Symphony in c minor (#1) op. 68  - Brahms - Vienna Philharmonic, Claudia Abbado

Fighting forward with determination grim and with ideals high. Nested pairs of two in three.

4 Ogives - Satie - Frank Glazer

May 21, 2015
Symphony in d minor (#3) - Mahler - Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink

Putting a brave face on the ghastly is no panacea for the sublime destruction barely slumbering a scratch away. The long benediction, attempting to be exhaustive, only succeeds at tying itself in knots.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 18, 2015
Gradus 266 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Recorded

May 9, 2015
Asciugate i begli occhi - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

Each statement of a poetic line possesses its own through-composed harmonic trajectory. Each breath and line break a unique response

Konzert in D Major BWV 1050 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

May 10, 2015

Keyboard Sonata in E Major Wq. 48 #3 - CPE Bach - Mikos Spanyi

For JSB ongoingness is a given, for CPEB it is a choice often unmade: backgoingness and restepping are close to being the norm.

Keyboard Sonata in F Major Hob. XVI.9 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

Anchored in the sensibility of the rational.

Concerto in F Major (#7) K 2424 - Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, Malcolm Bilson, Robert Levin, Melvyn Tan

This triple concerto is quite charming but a bit unwieldy, even for Mozart.

Sonata in E-flat Major Op. 27 #1 - Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff

Sinking into the stability implied by repetition, the variations eventually destabilize the whole. Music thirsting for its own destruction.

May 14, 2015
Allegro in B minor op. 8 - Schumann - Peter Frankl

A balloon fixed to an anchor, whipped by a typhoon.

12 Etudes op. 25 - Chopin - Alfred Cortot

Fancy, within strict bounds.

Reminiscences de Don Juan - Liszt - Jorge Bolet

This could be an episode from Dante: we chat with Don Juan in hell, defiant past the last.

In Session in the Tintinabulary
May 11, 2015
Banned Telepath 34 150511 Seattle
Banned Telepath 34 150511 Somerville
Banned Rehearsal 885 150511 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, and Neal Kosály-Meyer (in Seattle); and Aaron Keyt (in Somerville)

Playlist

Live

May 2, 2014

Ariadne auf Naxos - Strauss - Seattle Opera

McCaw Hall, Seattle

May 6, 2014

Machinations Musical, Divers & Sundry

Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Iriviskia - Ewa Trębacz
marble maze | performers visibile and present but effectively inaudible | a battle overhead

3 Short Improvisations - Donald Craig (on a 19-tone electric guitar)
images evaporate quickly | delicate | a subtle can into which he plays

Passacaglia - Joshua Parmenter
access to cello interior allowed | source and effect not recognizable cello but audibly arising from

Inflection, Cadence, Rhythm, Pain - Inmi Lee
personal / intimate detection instrument as theater | stillness and inner motion

isolated-disintegrated - Anna Stachurska
accumulation | foil and reminder | an echo

Twitity Twixt Audity - Douglas Niemela and Donald Craig
one 2 one spinning \ d . . . {my pen tip malfunctioned, and I can't remember the word I was writing}

It was dark and the program on which I was making notes was a saturated blue. With my old eyes I was unable to make out the marks of my writing. The little notes above are what I can read of what I wrote down. However, I was deeply moved by these performances, especially by their thoughtful, mutually considerate struggle to bring what could have been merely cerebral down (or up or in or out) into a human scale, to make certain, with dead aim, that this is about us, here. Thank you!

May 7, 2014

Seattle Composers' Salon
Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Krzeminski's Star - Matthew James Briggs - Matthew James Briggs, percussion; Candice Chin, violin

Mimetics of wonder and curiosity, to which the response is (first) dance and (later) awe.

Toad Song - Jessi Harvey

A most enjoyable and recommendable children's illustrated book. Spot on.

Reborn in Flame, The Death and Rebirth of a Phoenix - Ian McKnight

Literalist program music, as though it were a sound track to an educational film - except I don't remember those being so carefully considered.

Two Collaborative Works In Progress - Michael Owcharuk, piano; Karin Stevens, dance

Weight and work sinks into and sags the floor.

Recorded

March 5, 2015

Banned Rehearsal 598 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Isabel Kosály-Meyer, Neal Kosály-Meyer - January 2001

Melody beguiles us. Where it doesn't appear we will seek it out. This one gathers slowly, picking up its pieces, cleaning up the morning after a mess of music.

Uspavansky (Lullabies) - Jan Vicar - Karen Bentley Pollick, Ivan Sokolov [from Amberwood]

Made of parts hesitant (to coalesce), it is at its strongest when most hesitant (to coalesce). It is sheer, unrepentant sensibility. No goal but refinement.

Quattro per Quattro - Robert Morris - Momenta Quartet [from Open Space 32]

Forest's chest expanding slowly as it respires. Giants and gnats breathe a day of breezes. Densities emerge in multiple guises.

In Session in the Tintinabulary

May 3, 2015

Troll 150503 Instrumental - Keith Eisenbrey

I'm taking a short break from my duets project to work on something close but a little different. It may or may not come to anything. Not ready for public yet.

May 4, 2015

Gradus 265 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

whisperbrush

dust from artifact

or chisel bite

what is is what isn't played

what is is matrix

**

an eyes lifted sound

face turned upward

Playlist

Recorded

April 28, 2015
You Don't Know Like I Know - Sam and Dave - [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock and Soul]

The sound most upfront in the mix is tambourine. Vocals aren't buried, but they're within the sound, and seem to drift a little further back by the end.

Recital - Luciano Berio - Cathy Berberian

hiding behind not hiding behind, or how we forget the puppeteer.

Concerto for String Quartet, Brass, Winds & Percussion - Walter Piston - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz [recorded from a radio broadcast]

A nice enough piece, by the book.

She's Got A Way - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]
Under African Skies - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]

I guess I'm a sucker for essentials.

Michael Leese

WYSIWYG - Michael Leese - Trinity Chamber Players

Ages ago, it seems, I was active on the classical music forum on CompuServe and got acquainted with Micheal. He and I shared some sounds and then lost track of each other as the internet morphed under us. I was saddened to learn, as I looked him up this afternoon, that he passed away a few years ago, far too soon, at the age of 49.

The whole stays put.
Through it details flow, either pitchvertical or pointblankhorizontal.

Distance, Dance, Discern - Ryan Hare [from Intrada]

The relation between what is electronic-produced and what is acoustic-recorded is here uneasy. the EP is in a big space or makes a miniature me. AR is practice-room flat. Each pushes the other to be the real, neither vanquishes.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 26, 2015
Duet 150426 - Keith Eisenbrey

This Sunday's improvised solo duet was on a child-sized solid body electric guitar and a softball sized ocarina.

April 27, 2015
Banned Telepath 33 150427 Seattle
Banned Telepath 33 150427 Somerville
Banned Rehearsal 884 150427 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer (in Seattle); Aaron Keyt (in Somerville)


Aaron's portion was delivered with a warning that MIT Press publishes some interesting lists.